Amazon says this about the book: After suffering a sudden, traumatic loss, historical novelist Susannah Gilmore decides to uproot her life—and the lives of her two children—and leave their beloved Brooklyn for the little town of Eastwood, New Hampshire.

While the trio adjusts to their new surroundings, Susannah is captivated by an unexpected find in her late parents’ home: an unsigned love note addressed to her mother, in handwriting that is most definitely not her father’s.

Reeling from the thought that she never really knew her mother, Susannah finds mysteries everywhere she looks: in her daughter’s friendship with an older neighbor, in a charismatic local man to whom she’s powerfully drawn, and in an eighteenth century crime she’s researching for her next book. Compelled to dig into her mother’s past, Susannah discovers even more secrets, ones that surpass any fiction she could ever put to paper...

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

Migratory Animals by Mary Helen Specht
Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner
Girl in Glass by Deanna Fei
Orphan Number Eight by Kim van Alkemade
Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capo Crucet
The Seven Stages of Anger and Other Stories by Wendy J. Fox
The Door by Magda Szabo
Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg
Landfall by Ellen Urbani
This Must Be the Place by Kate Racculia
Henna House by Nomi Eve
The Coincidence of Coconut Cake by Amy Reichert
Bread Alone by Judith Ryan Hendricks
Fishbowl by Bradley Somer
The Woman in the Photograph by Dana Gynther
Beneath the Bonfire by Nickolas Butler
The Baker's Apprentice by Judith Ryan Hendricks
X Marks the Scot by Victoria Roberts
Miss Dreamsville and the Lost Heiress of Collier County by Amy Hill Hearth
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
The Bees by Laline Paull
A Peach of a Pair by Kim Boykin
Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson
Wonder by R. J. Palacio
The Sea Keeper's Daughter by Lisa Wingate
My Unsentimental Education by Debra Monroe
Minerva by M.C. Beaton
What Is Visible by Kimberly Elkins
Katherine Carlyle by Rupert Thomson
Two Dogs and a Parrot by Joan Chittister
The Last Season by Stuart Stevens
Mrs. Sinclair's Suitcase by Louise Walters
Forever Your Earl by Eva Leigh
Slightly Foxed, The Real Reader's Quarterly #46 edited by Gail Pirkis and Hazel Wood
We That Are Left by Clare Clark
Famous Baby by Karen Rizzo
Dear Mr. You by Mary-Louise Parker
Making Babies by Anne Enright
The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs by Matthew Dicks
A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
Daniel's True Desire by Grace Burrowes
Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
The Burned Bridges of Ward, Nebraska by Eileen
The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro
The Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan
The Resurrectionist by Jack O'Connell

Friday, December 25, 2015

As we head into an election year, we thought we should refresh your memory of just who gets to vote this coming year. The fact that there will be four of us should not alarm you much, well until you read this: the 2015 K. year in review.

January: D. continued to mostly enjoy working from home except for the fact that K. did not appreciate his version of the water cooler chat: randomly appearing in the kitchen. She took to ordering him back down to the basement whenever he happened to pop up upstairs and threatened him with the enforcement of the no workplace relationship clause common in most employment contracts.

February: It’s official. There will be no medical doctors from this branch of the family. Frog dissection makes T. vomit. And the middle school is relieved to hear that he’s the last of the weak stomached K. children to come through their hallowed halls.

March: And then there were three: T. became a teenager this month. K. and R. were rear-ended driving home from a dance competition. These two things (three teenagers and being rear-ended) are actually pretty similar—angst and aggravation all around.

April: This month had some pretty big highs and a horrible low. K. was asked to sit on a blogging in the literary world panel at the local community college’s literary festival. It was even covered in the paper. While it hasn’t led to an increase in readership, it’s just an honor to be nominated. ;-) W. turned 18 this month, making him a legal adult despite K. being sure we just brought him home from the hospital yesterday. And this is also the month we lost our beloved Daisy dog. There are no words.

May: D. took a new position this month, Senior Service Cloud Specialist (don’t you just love corporate speak titles?—and no, K. can’t tell you what it means either), which calls for pretty constant travel. Only the airline miles people could tell you where all he’s been this year. T.’s show choir went to States in May after winning Regionals. Unfortunately he didn’t get to perform as he managed to throw up on his friend’s shoes on the bus on the way to the competition. The biggest disappointment in all of this was that the music director had finally granted him permission to sing at a regular volume instead of very quietly so no one got to hear the result of all those voice lessons. K. and D. went to London for their twentieth anniversary this month. This is the same trip that D. gave her for their tenth anniversary and their fifteenth anniversary. K. reckons that means she’s still owed two trips over there.

June: K. went to New Orleans for the WNBA National Meeting. She came home just a couple of days before W.’s graduation and immediately had to jump into party planning mode. Before W. even walked across the stage to get his diploma [(it was really in there—we checked! (misspelled name and all)], his first college tuition bill arrived.

July: Remember all of the news about shark attacks? Dance Nationals was in Myrtle Beach, just up the beach from most of the attacks. If R. and her friends weren’t too young to get the reference, they probably would have been unimpressed by K.’s Jaws theme song impression. After dance was over, we (and again, I am leaving D. out of that collective noun) headed up to the cottage, where K. was willing to get in the water, confident there would be no hungry sharks around. With an unpleasant sense of déjà vu, we went down the dock one morning to find the boat half-sunk. This is an improvement over the summer K. fully sunk one, but still not a fun (or cheap) problem to have. W. and K.’s dad partnered to win the tennis tournament up there, a fact that tickled them greatly but annoyed K., who had to play against them (and lost badly).

August: We sent our first baby off to college this month. W. headed to High Point University for his freshman year. Given half a chance, W. wouldn’t be the only one in college as D. suffered serious pangs of jealousy during move-in weekend. As W. started his freshman year, R. started her senior year of high school and T. his last year of middle school. Just in time for him to go to school, T. came down with mono. The source of the virus, and by that we mean her name, remains a mystery.

September: T.’s braces finally came off so the orthodontist is going to have to find another way to fund his kids’ college education. K. painted both W. and R.’s bedrooms but not T.’s this month. She wanted to make sure he gets the full “third child” treatment. She’s promised to paint his if and when he cleans it up so she can see what color the carpet is. This is why it took so long to paint the others’ too.

October: W. came home for fall break this month and it was wonderful to have him ignoring us from the same zip code instead of from afar. To be fair, if you text him about something football related, you’re likely to get a response. If you are his mother and you text him with a question or an “I miss you,” you are not.

November: R. hit send on her college applications and got her first college acceptance this month. D. is still trying to ignore the fact that this means she really will be leaving us next year. T. had his biggest role yet in the middle school musical playing Ed the dumb hyena. That he plays the baffled and befuddled so very well is either a sign of some impressive acting talent or is terribly concerning.

As 2015 comes to a close, we hope that all of you are surrounded by family, peace, love, and happiness now and throughout the coming year.

Amazon says this about the book: In this absorbing and suspenseful debut novel—reminiscent of Revolutionary Road and inspired by a little-known piece of history—a young couple must fight to save both their marriage and the town they live in.

In 1959, Nat Collier moves with her husband, Paul, and their two young daughters to Idaho Falls, a remote military town. An Army Specialist, Paul is stationed there to help oversee one of the country’s first nuclear reactors—an assignment that seems full of opportunity.

Then, on his rounds, Paul discovers that the reactor is compromised, placing his family and the entire community in danger. Worse, his superiors set out to cover up the problem rather than fix it. Paul can’t bring himself to tell Nat the truth, but his lies only widen a growing gulf between them.

Lonely and restless, Nat is having trouble adjusting to their new life. She struggles to fit into her role as a housewife and longs for a real friend. When she meets a rancher, Esrom, she finds herself drawn to him, comforted by his kindness and company. But as rumors spread, the secrets between Nat and Paul build and threaten to reach a breaking point.

Based on a true story of the only fatal nuclear accident to occur in America, The Longest Night is a deeply moving novel that explores the intricate makeup of a marriage, the shifting nature of trust, and the ways we try to protect the ones we love.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Sometimes you are lucky enough to find a quiet, pleasing jewel of a novel, one that touches you just right and that you hold close to your heart. The late Kent Haruf's final novel, Our Souls at Night, is one such novel, written beautifully and reverently and is deeply touching.

Addie Moore and Louis Waters live in the small farming community of Holt, Colorado. Both are in their 70s, widowed, and living alone. They don't know each other well but one day Addie walks over to Louis' house, tells him that her loneliest hours are at night, and asks him if he'd be willing to come over and share her bed at night. There's nothing sexual in her proposition, just a yearning for connection and companionship. And although the town will gossip about them, Louis agrees, coming to value the comfort of Addie's hand in his as they drift off to sleep. Lying in the dark, these two gentle souls who have found each other share their pasts and the sorrows they carry in their hearts and they forge a lovely and deep relationship with each other.

When Addie's son and his wife separate the same summer, her six year old grandson Jamie comes to live with her and the dynamic of Addie and Louis' days changes to include this young boy and the dog they adopt for him but their nights remain mostly unchanged. They are two loving and kind people quietly enjoying these late in life moments of pure contentment. But not everyone sees the beauty between them and life flows on, changing and moving beyond their peaceful arrangement.

Haruf has written a beautiful, meditative little book on human connection and its loss. It is a moving look at aging and loneliness but also at the understated pleasure in the friendship, love, and presence of another human being, one whose soul compliments yours. The story is intimate, comforting, and ultimately sad. But with its peaceful plot and gorgeous writing, everything about the story feels like a benediction. As both Addie and Louis know, life is fickle so it matters that everyone taste of its sweetness whenever it's presented, offering thanks and appreciation for beauties encountered. This short novel is itself indeed one of the beauties of life. Stunning in its simplicity and its sincerity, this is well worth the read.

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

Migratory Animals by Mary Helen Specht
Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner
Girl in Glass by Deanna Fei
Orphan Number Eight by Kim van Alkemade
Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capo Crucet
The Seven Stages of Anger and Other Stories by Wendy J. Fox
The Door by Magda Szabo
Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg
Landfall by Ellen Urbani
This Must Be the Place by Kate Racculia
Henna House by Nomi Eve
The Coincidence of Coconut Cake by Amy Reichert
Bread Alone by Judith Ryan Hendricks
Fishbowl by Bradley Somer
The Woman in the Photograph by Dana Gynther
Beneath the Bonfire by Nickolas Butler
The Baker's Apprentice by Judith Ryan Hendricks
X Marks the Scot by Victoria Roberts
Miss Dreamsville and the Lost Heiress of Collier County by Amy Hill Hearth
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
The Bees by Laline Paull
A Peach of a Pair by Kim Boykin
Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson
Wonder by R. J. Palacio
The Sea Keeper's Daughter by Lisa Wingate
My Unsentimental Education by Debra Monroe
Minerva by M.C. Beaton
What Is Visible by Kimberly Elkins
Katherine Carlyle by Rupert Thomson
Two Dogs and a Parrot by Joan Chittister
The Last Season by Stuart Stevens
Mrs. Sinclair's Suitcase by Louise Walters
Forever Your Earl by Eva Leigh
Slightly Foxed, The Real Reader's Quarterly #46 edited by Gail Pirkis and Hazel Wood
We That Are Left by Clare Clark
Famous Baby by Karen Rizzo
Dear Mr. You by Mary-Louise Parker
Making Babies by Anne Enright
The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs by Matthew Dicks
A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
Daniel's True Desire by Grace Burrowes
Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
The Burned Bridges of Ward, Nebraska by Eileen
Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf

Thursday, December 17, 2015

When my children were small, I always helped them write out their letters to Santa so I'd know what they really wanted for Christmas. We'd pop the letters in our mailbox and I'd subsequently go out and retrieve them before the mailman got here. But what about those letters that make it into the postal system? And what about the letters written by children whose parents can't afford to grant the innocent wishes painstakingly penned on grubby paper? In 1913 in New York City, those letters were actually answered and gifts provided by the Santa Claus Association, created by John Duval Gluck, Jr. but the organization wasn't as benevolent as it appeared on the surface, as Alex Palmer details in his new non-fiction release, The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York.

Prior to 1913, letters addressed to Santa Claus were sent to the dead letter office and ultimately destroyed. John Duval Gluck, Jr., a customs broker in New York City, saw an opportunity to move out of the job he didn't love into the more lucrative field of PR via a feel good charity of his own creation, the Santa Claus Association. What started out as heartwarming and altruistic on the surface, pairing the poorest of New York's children with wealthier folks wanting to play Santa Claus to them, turned into an unregulated fundraising scam. If Gluck started out with the best of intentions, rescuing these sad letters, he was soon corrupted by the desire for fame and wealth that his association with the sentimental charity afforded him. By tapping into the good feeling and Christmas cheer of the public, he was able to solicit untold funds, rub elbows with the most famous stars of the day, and even parlay this job into other mutually beneficial, highly lucrative, and unfortunately dishonest or fraudulent positions for himself for fifteen long years.

Gluck's ascent as the Santa Claus Man coincided with the development and evolution of Santa into the jolly, giving figure we know today and with the rise of the commercialization of the holiday. Palmer, who is a distant nephew of Gluck's, not only details his relative's life and dishonest practices, but he also highlights the world in which a man could become rich off the back of a children's charity. World War I was looming. The Boy Scouts of America and the United States Boy Scout organizations were developing along diverging tracks, the latter of which employed Gluck in a fundraising capacity that was morally questionable. Charities had no watchdogs making sure that funds were applied appropriately and the public was generous and patriotic feeling. Perfect conditions for a scam artist.

Palmer has done an enormous amount of research into the time itself and into his great-great uncle's dealings, as far as any records show, and he has drawn a complete picture of a past with a more innocent, less cynical populace. Gluck was clearly a charismatic man who presented a show of bonhomie to all and sundry. And even though the reader knows from the outset that Gluck's intentions were not entirely honorable, the first part of the book ends with the hope that perhaps they are mistaken about what they ultimately know to be true, which is a credit to Palmer's writing. The rest of the book will prove the subtitle of the book to be the case and that chronicling of the underhanded, sneaky practices of Gluck's is not quite as compelling and feel-good as the creation of the Santa Claus Association is. Some of the small details of the time, especially in this later part of the tale are a bit overwhelming and unnecessary to the story as a whole but the premise is a fascinating one, made all the more interesting for its truth. This is a not a sweetly seasonal Christmas tale but instead a curious, unusual, and slightly sordid chapter in modern Christmas history.

Special blog tour Christmas gift: Get a free Santa bookplate signed by the author, plus two vintage Santa Claus Association holiday seals. Just email proof once you buy The Santa Claus Man (online receipt, photo of bookstore receipt, etc.) along with the mailing address where you'd like the gift sent to santaclausmanbook[at]gmail[dot]com. Email before 12/21 to guarantee delivery by Christmas.

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Adrenalin. Risk takers. Dare devils. Speed junkies. Some people are just built to pursue thrills. They thrill to the feeling of air whistling past their faces and sights flashing in their peripheral vision too fast to make out. Others of us are content to watch these people hurtle down hills and around curves, or better yet to find them in the pages of a book. Andy Bull's book, Speed Kings, about the men who would come to represent the US in bobsled at the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid gives readers a chance to live vicariously through these "fastest men in the world."

Bull combines part history of the sport of "bobbing," part biography of several team members, and part story of how the Olympics came to Lake Placid in 1932 in this sporting tale. Although the team was comprised of four men, the focus here is on Billy Fiske, a young, wealthy boy who was the embodiment of speed and competition and in fact the central figure, the heart and soul, of the team. In fact, the story opens with Fiske's daring and unlikely landing of a crippled fighter plane in Britain during WWII and his resultant death. After setting the stage with Billy's heroic death and a brief chapter centered on the teenager's life and lifelong attraction to speed, the tale moves backwards to cover the roots of the sport of bobsledding in St. Moritz, the winter playground of the rich. Starting as a tourist event open to all that quickly became too dangerous for any but the most reckless, bobsledding was a risky, adrenaline-filled sport that drew high society and thrilled crowds. As it grew in notoriety, it required more and more skill to drive a bob, eventually leading this exciting and novel sport to be added into the line-up of the fledgling Winter Olympics.

The story, while focused more on Billy Fiske than on his other teammates, does look at the interestingly disparate backgrounds of the four men who would eventually bob for the US in 1932: Tippy Gray, Eddie Eagan, Jay O'Brien, and of course, Billy Fiske. Each man had a very different road to the Olympic team and Bull looks at their lives and how they either fell into or chose the sport that caught the public's imagination. In addition to the history of the sport and the lives of the men, Bull also focuses on the almost failed attempt to bring the Olympics to the small town of Lake Placid, the man behind the effort, and the personality conflicts and financial crises that plagued the whole endeavor.

Bull has done a lot of research but sometimes the narrative is overwhelmed by the information he shares and his choices about what to elaborate on and what to skim superficially didn't always feel the right way round. It is so wide-ranging and detailed that it doesn't always maintain an even narrative tension and feels very choppy. The story is quite long and drawn out in the run up to the Olympics and the late addition of some of the very important people is a bit disconcerting. But as a piece that paints a picture of a time period with the decadence of the Roaring Twenties giving way to the austerity and loss of the Great Depression as the world faced an uncertain future with possible war looming again, he does a good job. Despite the flaws in the narrative, that a small town in upstate New York would step in, when bigger donors balked, and give money, even in the depths of the Great Depression, to bring the Olympics to their town, that the public would so fully embrace the new sport of bobsledding, and that an American team, a long shot by now, would overcome dramatically warm weather conditions to capture the gold makes this a tale worth telling.

Thanks to the publisher and LibraryThing Early Reviewers for sending me a copy of this book for review.

Amazon says this about the book: The heartfelt and hilarious, international bestselling debut about having it all without losing your mind.

Sophie Whelan is the kind of woman who prides herself on doing it all. In a single day, she can host a vegan-friendly and lactose-free dinner for ten, thwart a PTA president intent on forcing her to volunteer, and outwit her hostile ‘assistant’ in order to get her work done on time.

With her fortieth birthday looming, and her carefully coordinated existence beginning to come apart at the seams, Sophie begins feeling like she needs more from her life—and especially from her husband, Jesse.

The last thing Sophie needs is a new complication in her life. But when an opportunity from her past suddenly reappears, Sophie is forced to confront the choices she’s made and decide if her chaotic life is really a dream come true—or the biggest mistake she’s ever made…

The Resurrectionist by Jack O'Connell
The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro
Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

Reviews posted this week:

nothing :-(

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

Migratory Animals by Mary Helen Specht
Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner
Girl in Glass by Deanna Fei
Orphan Number Eight by Kim van Alkemade
Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capo Crucet
The Seven Stages of Anger and Other Stories by Wendy J. Fox
The Door by Magda Szabo
Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg
Landfall by Ellen Urbani
This Must Be the Place by Kate Racculia
Henna House by Nomi Eve
The Coincidence of Coconut Cake by Amy Reichert
Bread Alone by Judith Ryan Hendricks
Fishbowl by Bradley Somer
The Woman in the Photograph by Dana Gynther
Beneath the Bonfire by Nickolas Butler
The Baker's Apprentice by Judith Ryan Hendricks
X Marks the Scot by Victoria Roberts
Miss Dreamsville and the Lost Heiress of Collier County by Amy Hill Hearth
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
The Bees by Laline Paull
A Peach of a Pair by Kim Boykin
Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson
Wonder by R. J. Palacio
The Sea Keeper's Daughter by Lisa Wingate
My Unsentimental Education by Debra Monroe
Minerva by M.C. Beaton
What Is Visible by Kimberly Elkins
Katherine Carlyle by Rupert Thomson
Two Dogs and a Parrot by Joan Chittister
The Last Season by Stuart Stevens
Mrs. Sinclair's Suitcase by Louise Walters
Forever Your Earl by Eva Leigh
Speed Kings by Andy Bull
Slightly Foxed, The Real Reader's Quarterly #46 edited by Gail Pirkis and Hazel Wood
We That Are Left by Clare Clark
Famous Baby by Karen Rizzo
Dear Mr. You by Mary-Louise Parker
Making Babies by Anne Enright
The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs by Matthew Dicks
A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Santa Claus Man by Alex Palmer
Daniel's True Desire by Grace Burrowes

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Does the title phrase make you panic? Or maybe it causes you to sigh heavily. I am straddling the line between the two reactions at the moment. "I may need to mug an elf to get my Christmas $#!t together" is what I just posted as my status on Facebook. And there's a more than a little truth to it. I have undipped Buckeyes rolling around in my refrigerator. I have a kid who is in the middle of finals so has yet to text me his Christmas list (socks and underwear it is then). I have a pile of unwrapped presents that need to be mailed to my in-laws' house, which also means I have a trip to the chaos that is the Post Office at the holidays in my near future. I have little more than socks and underwear for my husband's stocking (are you sensing a theme yet?). My mother's gift has not yet shipped from the manufacturer. My husband said he'd come up with a gift for my brother-in-law (he hasn't). And my sister has never sent me any suggestions for her three young children's gifts. Not that I'm keeping score or anything. OK, I am keeping score. And from my vantage point, it looks like it's late in the fourth quarter and I'll need a Hail Mary to even tie (I'd say to win except my niece and nephews are going to be terribly unimpressed with their socks and underwear). On the plus side, I finally found the wreath hanger for the front door so the wreath can shed its needles all over the door step instead of in the house. Baby steps.

I have to be honest, being frantic or frazzled doesn't inspire Christmas cheer. But maybe if I got into the spirit of the season a little, I wouldn't be so stressed. It is quite the circularity, isn't it? So I think I need to settle in with some Christmas books and some Christmas movies and practice some deep breathing techniques (they didn't come in handy during labor but maybe they'll work now). I don't tend to like heartwarming Christmas stories, preferring funny or warped. I mean, last night watching Rudolph (it was the 51st anniversary of it first appearing on tv), I might have remarked on what an arsehole Santa (and Donner and the chief elf, and the young reindeer, and Clarice's father, and, and, and) was. Hard to imagine, I know, but it's fairly difficult to find holiday themed books and movies that hit my sweet spot. I think I've got the movies sorted with several Mrs. Brown's Boys Christmas specials (if you haven't read Brendan O'Carroll's The Mammy, read it--not a Christmas book but the inspiration for this completely hilarious and inappropriate series) but I keep running up against the dreaded "heartwarming" word in looking at Christmas books, David Sedaris excepted. And I've already read his book. Any suggestions for me? If you don't have any books to suggest, I'll take offers to dip those Buckeyes, wrap presents, stand in line at the PO, or shop for me too. Oh!!! Stop the presses! That's all I want for Christmas: an assistant, elvish or not, to take all of this crazy off of my shoulders so I can just concentrate on my usual levels of batty. But I need Santa to drop said assistant off before Christmas please. (And Santa, I'm awfully sorry I called you an arsehole last night--you kinda were, but if it gets me an assistant, I can be sorry I mentioned it.)

In trying to get myself closer to finished with Christmas, I haven't been reading as much as usual but this past week my reading travels did take me to India and Rhode Island as one brother grappled with his brother's loss and legacy to him, to New York City as Santa's letters from the poorest children were answered and then exploited, and to historic England as a married vicar fell in love with the earl's sister. I am still traveling through England's domestic realm before World War II, New York as a young woman traces what happened to her great aunt's art work, at the medical clinic with a father hoping to have his son "resurrected," and entrenched in upper class Britain between the wars with a family modeled after the Mitfords. Where did your reading take you this past week?

Amazon says this about the book: In this new novel from the acclaimed author of Secrets of a Charmed Life, two women working in Hollywood during its Golden Age discover the joy and heartbreak of true friendship.

Los Angeles, Present Day. When an iconic hat worn by Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind ends up in Christine McAllister’s vintage clothing boutique by mistake, her efforts to return it to its owner take her on a journey more enchanting than any classic movie…

Los Angeles, 1938. Violet Mayfield sets out to reinvent herself in Hollywood after her dream of becoming a wife and mother falls apart, and lands a job on the film-set of Gone With the Wind. There, she meets enigmatic Audrey Duvall, a once-rising film star who is now a fellow secretary. Audrey’s zest for life and their adventures together among Hollywood’s glitterati enthrall Violet…until each woman’s deepest desires collide. What Audrey and Violet are willing to risk, for themselves and for each other, to ensure their own happy endings will shape their friendship, and their lives, far into the future.

Monday, December 7, 2015

If Christmas is a ship, mine is sinking! I have a long list of tasks to do to be even close to ready for the holiday. That fact combined with the fact that I was sick and cruddy feeling (15+ hours of sleep one day) means I got almost no reading in again this week. Once I get all gifts purchased though, I should have loads of reading time while I stand in line at the Post Office to send them. :-P In any case, I miss my books dreadfully! This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed this past week are:

A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

The Resurrectionist by Jack O'Connell
The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro
Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

Migratory Animals by Mary Helen Specht
Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner
Girl in Glass by Deanna Fei
Orphan Number Eight by Kim van Alkemade
Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capo Crucet
The Seven Stages of Anger and Other Stories by Wendy J. Fox
The Door by Magda Szabo
Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg
Landfall by Ellen Urbani
This Must Be the Place by Kate Racculia
Henna House by Nomi Eve
The Coincidence of Coconut Cake by Amy Reichert
Bread Alone by Judith Ryan Hendricks
Fishbowl by Bradley Somer
The Woman in the Photograph by Dana Gynther
Beneath the Bonfire by Nickolas Butler
The Baker's Apprentice by Judith Ryan Hendricks
X Marks the Scot by Victoria Roberts
Miss Dreamsville and the Lost Heiress of Collier County by Amy Hill Hearth
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
The Bees by Laline Paull
A Peach of a Pair by Kim Boykin
Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson
Wonder by R. J. Palacio
The Sea Keeper's Daughter by Lisa Wingate
My Unsentimental Education by Debra Monroe
Minerva by M.C. Beaton
What Is Visible by Kimberly Elkins
Katherine Carlyle by Rupert Thomson
Two Dogs and a Parrot by Joan Chittister
The Last Season by Stuart Stevens
Mrs. Sinclair's Suitcase by Louise Walters
Forever Your Earl by Eva Leigh
Speed Kings by Andy Bull
Slightly Foxed, The Real Reader's Quarterly #46 edited by Gail Pirkis and Hazel Wood
We That Are Left by Clare Clark
Famous Baby by Karen Rizzo
Dear Mr. You by Mary-Louise Parker
Making Babies by Anne Enright
The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs by Matthew Dicks
A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins

I started Christmas shopping and while I can't list the books I got family in case they read this, you can see I work on the one for you, one for me premise. (Not entirely since I got them more than I got myself but sometimes my finger slips and I add something of my own to the bucket--purely by accident, of course!) This past week's mailbox arrivals:

Amazon says this about the book: Meet John Nichols. He’s fifty-something years old, an ex-basketball player, ex-author, ex-philanderer, ex-husband, ex-high school English teacher. And he’s the father of three: two overachieving adult daughters and 19-year-old Ethan, who will never be an adult. John’s older daughter is getting married, and as the family members travel to the celebration, John is secretly preparing for a life change that will alter his family’s hearts forever.

The five Nichols’ are held together by love and humor, as well as the spiky parts of sisterly competition and a difficult baby brother. Parents John and Mary have devoted themselves to caregiving, and John especially finds himself caught in the tension between being a parent and being true to himself. So when a new challenge comes their way in the wake of a road trip and wedding plans, the family bonds are stretched and tested. Funny, heartbreaking, and generous, IT’S. NICE. OUTSIDE. asks: What happens when you have to let go of the person who has been holding you up?

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Molly and Aidan want to adopt a baby. Molly lost their daughter at twenty weeks pregnant and had to have a hysterectomy so they can no longer have a biological child. As they go through the long and comprehensive process of applying to be adoptive parents, Molly worries that the lies and omissions about her past will finally come to light, keeping them from being approved. She desperately wants to be a mother but the events of one terrible summer that formed her so many years ago rise up in the form of reluctance and unexplainable fear at the process and what it could uncover now. In order to hide from that summer, Molly has told Aidan that her mother is dead rather than the truth: that she is completely estranged from her mother because the summer Molly was 14, her mother killed her father.

Fourteen year old Molly lives a fairly idyllic life on Morrison Ridge, with her mother Nora, father Graham, biological mother Amalia, and Graham's caretaker Russell. Graham needs a full time caretaker because he is in the advanced stages of MS, completely confined to a wheelchair and unable to move any part of his body but his head and neck. Despite this devastating disability, he is a kind and gentle father, adored by Molly, and is a still practicing therapist renowned for Pretend Therapy and his books on the topic. Molly's life is going to change significantly this summer though. At 14, she's both naive child and striving to be an adult. She is sometimes attuned to her father's feelings, worrying that he needs more happiness in his life and at other times she's a bratty, selfish teen who can't see beyond her own irresponsible wants. Her summer starts with Molly getting close to a new friend, one who turns out not to have the golden life Molly has imagined but who is given freedoms and left unsupervised in ways that tempt and draw Molly. Through fast, wild Stacy, Molly will push her boundaries, experimenting with pot and fooling around with boys. And as she rebels against the sheltered, safe life her parents have created for her, she will miss vital undercurrents in her immediate and extended family that will change everything and reverberate through her life.

Chapters alternate between adult Molly in the present and teenaged Molly that long ago summer, between the emotional roller coaster unknown of a potential open adoption with a teenaged mom and the summer that Molly storms towards adulthood and loses her father. The two different time lines don't always compliment each other as much as they might and sometimes one even undermines the emotional resonance of the other, as when Molly's fear of open adoption is contrasted with the inclusive way in which her own childhood was handled. Chamberlain has done a great job portraying Molly's early teen naivete, the way she can change from lovely and caring to offended high dudgeon in no time flat, her rejection of her parents' strictures, and her self-centered desire for the freedom to indulge herself. All of these aspects of young Molly's personality ring very true to life but they don't make her a very likable character. Adult Molly can, and sometimes does, come across as cold and unemotional rather than someone protecting her feelings as a result of her past. That she continues to keep the biggest secret (and several related secrets) of her life from Aidan, despite knowing that he is the most steadfast, forgiving, and caring man ever, as if in not facing the tragedy of that summer, she has not been able to mature beyond that fourteen year old girl, is troubling. In fact, she's never tried to examine what she knows to be true from an adult perspective, clinging to her childhood certainty and deliberately turning her back on her entire family. Of course, the secrets must eventually come out and the (rather predictable) truth of the mystery of Graham's death is slowly revealed as the narrative moves on toward a final culmination. The portions of the novel focused on young Molly are dominant over the present day story, leaving the novel a bit unbalanced, not delving as deeply into the fascinating issue of open adoption as it might have. As a coming of age novel, a look at the cost of debilitating chronic illness on an entire family, the destructive power of secrets, and the many permutations of what constitutes family, this delves into complicated and interesting ideas in an emotional and mostly engaging way.

Thanks to the publisher and Book Sparks PR for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Monday, November 30, 2015

Thanksgiving and our annual After Thanksgiving Party really cut into my reading and any reviewing I thought I was going to do this week. To be honest, the majority of my reading this week was of recipes, not books. But aside from Christmas shopping, my life should be back to my usual reading saturation again now. And I wouldn't have it any other way! This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed this past week are:

The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs by Matthew Dicks
The Black Velvet Coat by Jill G. Hall
Pretending to Dance by Diane Chamberlain

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

The Resurrectionist by Jack O'Connell
The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro
A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

Migratory Animals by Mary Helen Specht
Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner
Girl in Glass by Deanna Fei
Orphan Number Eight by Kim van Alkemade
Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capo Crucet
The Seven Stages of Anger and Other Stories by Wendy J. Fox
The Door by Magda Szabo
Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg
Landfall by Ellen Urbani
This Must Be the Place by Kate Racculia
Henna House by Nomi Eve
The Coincidence of Coconut Cake by Amy Reichert
Bread Alone by Judith Ryan Hendricks
Fishbowl by Bradley Somer
The Woman in the Photograph by Dana Gynther
Beneath the Bonfire by Nickolas Butler
The Baker's Apprentice by Judith Ryan Hendricks
X Marks the Scot by Victoria Roberts
Miss Dreamsville and the Lost Heiress of Collier County by Amy Hill Hearth
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
The Bees by Laline Paull
A Peach of a Pair by Kim Boykin
Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson
Wonder by R. J. Palacio
The Sea Keeper's Daughter by Lisa Wingate
My Unsentimental Education by Debra Monroe
Minerva by M.C. Beaton
What Is Visible by Kimberly Elkins
Katherine Carlyle by Rupert Thomson
Two Dogs and a Parrot by Joan Chittister
The Last Season by Stuart Stevens
Mrs. Sinclair's Suitcase by Louise Walters
Forever Your Earl by Eva Leigh
Speed Kings by Andy Bull
Slightly Foxed, The Real Reader's Quarterly #46 edited by Gail Pirkis and Hazel Wood
We That Are Left by Clare Clark
Famous Baby by Karen Rizzo
Dear Mr. You by Mary-Louise Parker
Making Babies by Anne Enright
The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs by Matthew Dicks
Pretending to Dance by Diane Chamberlain

Amazon says this about the book: Natasha Solomons’s breathtaking new novel has it all: a love triangle, family obligations, and rediscovering joy in the face of grief, all set against the alluring backdrop of an English country estate perfect for fans of Downton Abbey

It's a terrible thing to covet your brother’s girl

New Year’s Eve, Dorset, England, 1946. Candles flicker, a gramophone scratches out a tune as guests dance and sip champagne— for one night Hartgrove Hall relives better days. Harry Fox-Talbot and his brothers have returned from World War II determined to save their once grand home from ruin. But the arrival of beautiful Jewish wartime singer Edie Rose tangles the threads of love and duty, and leads to a devastating betrayal.

Fifty years later, now a celebrated composer, Fox reels from the death of his adored wife, Edie. Until his connection with his four-year old grandson - a music prodigy – propels him back into life, and ultimately to confront his past. An enthralling novel about love and treachery, joy after grief, and a man forced to ask: is it ever too late to seek forgiveness?

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

You can never predict what seemingly ordinary item will catch your fancy and not let it go. Muse and inspiration are a mystery and as individual as snow flakes. But once something has captured your imagination, following it where it leads can make surprising connections or even change the trajectory of your life. In Jill G. Hall's debut novel, The Black Velvet Coat, muse and inspiration do both.

Anne McFarland is a struggling artist in San Francisco when she sees a black velvet coat in the front window of a thrift shop. Inexplicably she spends some of the very little money she has, money she'd earmarked for her rent, on the coat and the lovely sparkling snowflake pin pinned to it. Throwing on the beautiful garment, she heads off to her job as a hotel valet, one of the small jobs she's taken to try and keep her head above water while she waits for her big break in the art world. When she stumbles across a 1960s era picture of a local heiress wearing what appears to be the same coat and pin, Anne is captivated and determined to uncover Sylvia Van Dam's story. In the picture, Sylvia is leaving her engagement party with her debonair fiance but there's something about the expression in her eyes, an unhappiness, that draws Anne to her story and she starts working on a collage series that could very well be the best thing she's ever produced.

Alternating with Anne's story is Sylvia's story and what's behind the look in her eyes. Orphaned at a young age, Sylvia is a shy and unassuming young woman. Even before her parents died, she never felt she measured up to expectations and her lack of confidence in herself is heartbreaking. When she meets the flashy and charismatic Ricardo, she is entranced, falling for him quickly and ignoring the warnings all of her nearest and dearest give her about his character. When those warnings turn out to be based in truth, catastrophe strikes and Sylvia runs from the consequences.

The novel starts with Sylvia on the run from a crime the reader knows was committed but doesn't yet understand. And its genesis will only become clear over the course of the novel. The chapters alternate between Anne in the present day and Sylvia in the 1960s. As Anne uncovers more about Sylvia's life through newspaper accounts of the time, the chapters centered on Sylvia flesh out this minimal information that Anne has read. And it is the mystery of this seemingly glamorous woman that inspires Anne in her work. Anne is still struggling, suffering from her own insecurities based on rejections from an uninspired and tradition bound gallery owner and the opinions of people who are, in truth, really only tangential to her world. She needs to learn to find an inherent internal value to herself and her art. In fact, her character is an odd combination of neediness and courage and the two didn't always mesh. Sylvia too needs to stop viewing herself through the eyes of others and recognize her own value. She is deserving of being loved, something that she only comes to appreciate in her flight and through the kindness of strangers. There are several romantic relationships in the novel, for both Anne and Sylvia, and they are rather flat and one dimensional feeling. The Sylvia story line felt much more historical than the 1960s; it almost had a Roaring Twenties air about it. The two different stories, Sylvia's disappearance and Anne's conflictedness about her life choices, were both compelling though and wondering how they'd come together keeps the reader turning the pages. The conclusion of the novel was too fast and a bit unfinished, especially given all the detail given in the beginning and middle of the novel. Full of issues like inspiration and its source, believing in yourself and creating your own happiness, learning courage, a reminder to look beneath the facade to find reality, and the grace of giving to others, over all, this was a fast and pleasurable read.

Thanks to the publisher and Book Sparks PR for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Monday, November 23, 2015

The Resurrectionist by Jack O'Connell
The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro
The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs by Matthew Dicks

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

Migratory Animals by Mary Helen Specht
Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner
Girl in Glass by Deanna Fei
Orphan Number Eight by Kim van Alkemade
Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capo Crucet
The Seven Stages of Anger and Other Stories by Wendy J. Fox
The Door by Magda Szabo
Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg
Landfall by Ellen Urbani
This Must Be the Place by Kate Racculia
Henna House by Nomi Eve
The Coincidence of Coconut Cake by Amy Reichert
Bread Alone by Judith Ryan Hendricks
Fishbowl by Bradley Somer
The Woman in the Photograph by Dana Gynther
Beneath the Bonfire by Nickolas Butler
The Baker's Apprentice by Judith Ryan Hendricks
X Marks the Scot by Victoria Roberts
Miss Dreamsville and the Lost Heiress of Collier County by Amy Hill Hearth
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
The Bees by Laline Paull
A Peach of a Pair by Kim Boykin
Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson
Wonder by R. J. Palacio
The Sea Keeper's Daughter by Lisa Wingate
My Unsentimental Education by Debra Monroe
Minerva by M.C. Beaton
What Is Visible by Kimberly Elkins
Katherine Carlyle by Rupert Thomson
Two Dogs and a Parrot by Joan Chittister
The Last Season by Stuart Stevens
Mrs. Sinclair's Suitcase by Louise Walters
Forever Your Earl by Eva Leigh
Speed Kings by Andy Bull
Slightly Foxed, The Real Reader's Quarterly #46 edited by Gail Pirkis and Hazel Wood
We That Are Left by Clare Clark
Famous Baby by Karen Rizzo
Dear Mr. You by Mary-Louise Parker
Making Babies by Anne Enright

Sunday, November 22, 2015

I haven't read much at all this week. Pick your jaws up off the floor; it's still me. I've just been busy and tired and tired and busy. The middle school musical, my baby's last musical performance was this week, with shows from Wednesday until Saturday. He was Ed the Dumb Hyena and he was outstanding in the role, if I do say so as a completely unbiased observer. We haven't stopped teasing him that none of his lines contained words and that it was the easiest casting choice ever. Good thing he can take a joke! In addition to helping with the make-up for several of the shows, I also had two interesting book related events this past week. The first was a panel on the topic of "I'm Published. Now What? Making Money With Your Writing." It was quite different than I expected it to be and much broader in scope than I imaged but it was both interesting and informative. Then I had dinner and went to an author event with B.A. Shapiro, who is touring for her newest novel, The Muralist. Barbara was a delight and if you have a chance to see her on her book tour, you absolutely should. Once I was through all of that, I had a moment to breathe and realize that the holidays are coming at an alarming clip. I have most of the fixings for our Thanksgiving meal but we also host an After Thanksgiving Party where people in town for the holiday and their house guests come over and get a break from each other. Sometimes 3 or 4 days is just too long to look at the same people over the dinner table, you know? I've finalized the all-appetizer menu and pushed send on the invitations so there's no backing out of it now! Even R. has asked if she can invite a friend to the party. I pick W. up from college on Tuesday and bring him home. I was reduced to sending him a text threatening to leave him at school to have turkey and mashed potatoes there if he didn't text or call me. It'll be so nice to have him home, ignoring us in the same zip code instead of from a distance! I've already started looking for Christmas presents, especially for the particularly hard to buy for (all males in the family, I'm looking at you!). If I make it through this next week of constant cooking and cleaning and entertaining, I will likely hole up with my books for the foreseeable future to try and recover. Either that or you'll find me in the fetal position sucking my thumb. ;-)

For this week's reading travels, I will cut and paste this from last week: "I am still at the medical clinic with a father hoping to have his son "resurrected." I am also still entrenched in upper class Britain between the wars with a family modeled after the Mitfords." I also added a couple: I am in Christie's looking through a box of paintings that are possibly from the WPA era and potentially early works of very famous artists and I just dropped the f-bomb at a PTA meeting, which is completely unlike me and appears to herald a new me. Where have your reading travels taken you this week?

Amazon says this about the book: In the tradition of Memoirs of a Geisha and The Piano Teacher, a heart-wrenching debut novel of family, forgiveness, and the exquisite pain of love

When Amaterasu Takahashi opens the door of her Philadelphia home to a badly scarred man claiming to be her grandson, she doesn’t believe him. Her grandson and her daughter, Yuko, perished nearly forty years ago during the bombing of Nagasaki. But the man carries with him a collection of sealed private letters that open a Pandora’s Box of family secrets Ama had sworn to leave behind when she fled Japan. She is forced to confront her memories of the years before the war: of the daughter she tried too hard to protect and the love affair that would drive them apart, and even further back, to the long, sake-pouring nights at a hostess bar where Ama first learned that a soft heart was a dangerous thing. Will Ama allow herself to believe in a miracle?

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

We ask those in the military to leave their homes and families and go all over the world to ensure our safety. People choose to accept this request for any number of reasons but whatever the motivation is, it's not an easy thing we ask of them. And unacknowledged or unknown by the civilian population, it's also not an easy thing for these soldiers to come home again, to re-immerse themselves in everyday life, to leave the things that they saw, troubling or disturbing or horrifying, behind them. It is a combination of what happens out there in the field, what those serving internalize and bring home, and the ways in which regular society fails our returned military in terms of mental health and support that keeps so many of the people who put their own lives on the line for us every day in the news in such negative ways. PTSD is very real and it is a terrible thing. The percentage of returned soldiers who commit suicide is staggering. If we are going to ask people to witness the terrible things that they see and to risk themselves every day, until we can solve war, we owe it to them to find a way to help them live productive lives after their tours of duty are finished. In Cara Hoffman's latest novel, Be Safe I Love You, readers follow Lauren Clay, a young woman just back from Iraq and suffering from PTSD as she looks with changed eyes on her family, friends, and the town in which they live.

Lauren Clay comes home from a tour in Iraq to no fanfare. She wanted to surprise everyone she loves so she didn't tell them she was coming. She's especially eager to see her younger brother Danny, for whom she was the caretaker for so many years after their mother abandoned them and their father sank into a deep depression. A naturally gifted singer, Lauren gave up a chance at further training in order to enlist to ensure Danny a better, more secure life than the one she lived. When she comes back into town, she is somehow different in ways that no one can quite explain. Thinking that she just needs time to readjust, no one worries or wonders about the pent up anger she is clearly carrying. The town is full of military and former military so they understand that reentry will be a prolonged and personal experience for her as she comes to terms with all the changes that her five years gone have wrought. But ex-boyfriend Shane, best friend Holly, voice teacher Troy, her father, and her 13 year old brother all overlook, or maybe just don't want to acknowledge, the fact that Lauren isn't okay and she carries deeper, darker scars than they can even imagine. In fact, she is spiraling out of control, hallucinating and confusing reality with memories and stories, and she needs help.

When Lauren comes back to the US, she's been fast tracked through her out processing because she doesn't show any signs of being at risk. She has plans for the future and a family waiting for her. But what she discovers at home bears little resemblance to what she left when she enlisted. Her brother is a typical teenager. He spends hours on his phone and his computer. The mother who abandoned them as children is interested in their lives and willing to be present for both Danny and Lauren if they want. Ex-boyfriend Shane went off to college and his world perspective no longer matches Lauren's. And the biggest change of all, her father is no longer depressed. When she discovers that it only took a couple of months on anti-depressants to regulate him and pull him out of bed after she left, she is angry and bitter that he didn't solve this problem before. But his re-emergence also serves to strip her of the caretaker role she fully expected to reassume when she came home. Having her expectations collapse, even for a good reason, leaves her floundering to define her new role. And it is in this life of uncertainty, one that she can't quite believe is safe, that Lauren starts to exhibit more and more signs of PTSD.

Lauren as a character is frozen and remote from everyone, including the reader. She does show flashes of fire when her anger erupts occasionally, when she cannot keep it tamped down in the place where her memories from Iraq are stored. She works so hard to keep that fire contained, not letting it melt and consume the stark, white blankness inside of her, because she doesn't want to remember the terrible things she did or the tragedy she saw. Running off to the Jeanne d'Arc Basin in the middle of winter, on her way to meet up with Daryl, the fellow soldier and close friend with whom she made future plans, accurately reflects her inner mental state. She is a character who needs the reader's sympathy but whose inexplicable rage towards those she cares about tests that sympathy time and again. There are a couple of secondary plot lines that don't add much to the story and seem either out of place or just filler doing nothing to illuminate the main story line, including Lauren's best friend Holly's relationship with Patrick; Troy, Lauren's voice teacher's oft repeated locally accepted lack of intelligence; and ex-boyfriend Shane's discussion with his current girlfriend about Lauren. And there were pieces missing from the story. What Lauren experienced and saw in Iraq had such a horrific effect on her but the telling of that story is saved for the end of the novel where it is not really explored in depth at all. The epilogue is promising but too easy, leaving out all the hard work of getting to that place mentally and emotionally. But the book as a whole is an important one, shining a light on PTSD, and PTSD in a female soldier at that. It feels like a very real, very raw situation and doesn't allow the reader to turn away from the results of soldiering that don't show on the surface but that lurk deep in the psyche. Emotional wounds are no less vital to treat than the physical ones and Hoffman has made that incredibly clear in the heartbreaking and broken character of Lauren.

Monday, November 16, 2015

How do you repair a family relationship, one broken by terrible actions? What does it take to earn forgiveness and to whom is it owed? Addie Bates is thirty and she's been running from her past for fifteen years. Something so terrible happened in her past that she left her home and her older sister, ending up living in the Sleepy Valley Nudist Colony and having no contact with her family for fully half of her life but always mourning that loss. When the colony agrees to exhibit themselves and their way of life at the 1935 World's Fair, she is forced to return to San Diego where her young life first seemed like it was finally going to go well and then went so terribly, terribly wrong.

Addie and sister Wavey lost their parents at a young age. The older Wavey was taken in by their aunt and uncle but Addie, too young to help on the farm, was sent to an orphanage. When Wavey married, she and her husband sent for Addie to come and live with them and help with the baby that Wavey was expecting. Addie was thrilled to leave the orphanage and join her adored sister and new brother-in-law, Ty, but she soon discovers that life under the abusive and predatory Ty's roof is more nightmare than dream. Only her love for her sister and baby Mary brighten her days. When she makes a spur of the moment decision in defense of her sister, both their lives are shattered and Addie must flee. She's been aching for Wavey's forgiveness ever since. As she is aging and coming up on a time when her naked body is no longer a visual commodity for the colony, her future there is limited and uncertain. So Addie thinks that she will try to reconnect with her sister, in person this time, rather than simply sending more letters like those that have been marked return to sender throughout the years. If Wavey can forgive her, maybe Addie will have a future outside the colony after all. But reconciliation won't be easy and even after fifteen years as a nudist Addie is still learning to be comfortable in her own skin, to accept herself as she is, and to forgive herself. The question is whether Wavey can and will do the same.

Instead of Wavey, when Addie first goes to her sister's home, she encounters Mary, all grown-up, and another niece she didn't know about, Rumor. Once Rumor uncovers who the woman outside their house is, she is dogged in her determination to meet her aunt, despite her misgivings knowing that Addie is a nudist. The colony and those in it are considered an abomination and scandal by decent folk in San Diego and it will be a challenge for Rumor to see and talk to Addie as a result. Addie's re-appearance and Rumor's persistence in making a connection will bring all of the family secrets to the surface, will force Wavey and Addie to acknowledge the horror of the past, and will make them look the present squarely in the face. The truth will challenge what Mary and Rumor know about themselves and their family and is the only thing that can start to repair the damage done in so many lives fifteen years ago.

The narration is third person limited alternating from Addie's and Rumor's points of view. The chapters centered on Addie move backwards and forwards in time, giving the reader both flashes from the past, ultimately leading up to what caused the sisters to fall out and Addie to leave San Diego, and her present day situation in the fairgrounds nudist colony exhibit. Rumor's chapters are all from her present and clearly show her to be a rebellious and inquisitive teenager. The plot is set up to reveal the mystery of what happened in Wavey and Addie's past very slowly. In fact, the mystery is not really much of a mystery, easily guessed although circumstances around it are more complicated than the reader perhaps initially expects. As the two foci, Addie and Rumor are the best fleshed out characters and all others are seen through their eyes. Addie's character is engaging and sympathetic; it is clear she has suffered. Rumor is curious and loyal but can be as immature as would be expected of her age. Mary is a bit of a milk sop character; even though she's the older, she is definitely less adventurous and open-minded than her sister. Wavey is a strange dichotomy of a character. She's a neglectful mother at times, going out dancing and drinking nightly and spending days hungover and sleeping, and fiercely protective at other times. There is a large supporting cast of characters here and although they, with a few exceptions, are truly secondary, they are surprisingly three dimensional, not all good nor all bad. The story is one that starts off with a dark, hinted at secret but it grows even darker with rape, domestic abuse, violence, murder, and pedophilia all contained within it. The pacing is uneven, with the beginning drawn out slowly followed suddenly by major revelation after major revelation all coming on top of each other in the last quarter of the book. Even with this imbalance, the reader will push on, wanting to see how the need to protect those we love from harm plays out between both Addie and Wavey and Wavey and her daughters. It is a tale of estrangement, secrets, lives derailed, and the bonds between sisters. Those who like historical fiction will be fascinated by the setting and time of this novel and fans of family dynamics stories will find much to engage them as well.

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About Me

A voracious reader, fledgling runner, and full time kiddie chauffeur.
If anyone out there wants to send me books for review (oh please don't fro me in that briar patch!), you can contact me at whitreidsmama (at) yahoo (dot) com. If you do write me there, put the blog name in the subject line or I'm liable to send the unread message to spam. My book review policy can be found here.